Category Archives: Cristina del Canto

RAFFLESIA ARNOLDI

My love, you’re an island,
I will not pass you by.
Together, we’ll drink grass jelly
from cracked coconut shells,
using sticks to write poetry in the sand.
Komodos will watch us,
flicking their pink forked tongues
as you pick me a flower,
the largest in the world,
in full bloom,
with an odor of decaying flesh.
And when days threaten our youth
you will shout out that you
find my crow’s feet sexy,
my gray hair alluring,
my aged mind astute.
We will then laugh because
we are tiny dots,
in a big archipelago,
What more could we be?